Flood map revisions may help lower homeowner insurance costs

TUSCALOOSA | With the completion of flood map revisions for areas within the tornado zone, Tuscaloosa's Office of the City Engineer is now ready to re-examine flood-prone areas citywide.

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | With the completion of flood map revisions for areas within the tornado zone, Tuscaloosa's Office of the City Engineer is now ready to re-examine flood-prone areas citywide.The City Council's Finance Committee voted May 14 to grant a $100,000 contract to CFM Group to examine the entire city for areas to revise floodplain boundaries. A final vote of the City Council, expected later this month, will make the contract effective.Officials said CFM Group's review will take about 120 days and that there are several previously defined floodplains throughout Tuscaloosa that have been reduced in recent years because of storm water drainage improvements.By reducing the maps and getting them approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the cost of flood insurance to city residents can fall drastically.“If we systematically prioritize and correct the maps as recommended over the next decade, the savings could run into the millions citywide,” said Chad Christian, the city's storm drainage engineer.Insurance savings are already available to residents and businesses that have returned to the path taken by the April 27, 2011, tornado.The city participates in FEMA's Flood Mitigation Assistance Program, which helps offset flood insurance costs for property owners but limits what can be built inside a federally designated floodway, which is a defined area within the floodplain.Environmental regulations make construction in areas with a floodway designation virtually impossible.In April, revised floodway maps for three areas within the tornado recovery zone were approved by FEMA after more than a year of review.City Hall addressed the map revision process in three phases: the Forest Lake area; the area between 15th Street at Contemporary Mitsubishi and Krispy Kreme on McFarland Boulevard, which includes the Cedar Crest neighborhood; and the area between the Forest Lake neighborhood and Alberta.In almost every instance, the floodplain was reduced to city-constructed storm drainage channels, some of which have been in place as long as the early 1980s.“There will be substantial savings realized over time by property owners (in the tornado zone) due to the elimination of annual flood insurance premiums,” Christian said.Much of the citywide floodplain revisions will be improved by the ongoing work of a massive storm water drainage improvement project that the city has dubbed Noah's Ark.Since 2007, the Noah's Ark bond issue has funded more than 30 drainage improvement projects across the city, with costs ranging from $30,000 to $4.8 million per project.A total of almost $26 million has been invested in the project that originally was budgeted at $21 million for 13 projects, but has since been expanded through interest earnings as well as $4.5 million in federal grant funds.City officials have said that several of these areas will see their first significant floodplain update since the federally-recognized floodplain maps were introduced in 1979. This is because, at one time, it was not the city's policy to modify the maps in conjunction with a project that improved the drainage in a particular area.

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